The culinary delight - Madrasi Sambar

This anecdote, during my professional life in a nationalized bank, in the nineties was something of a unique experience; it is worth a recall.

I was posted to work in a branch in the somewhat popular town in Haryana State of Northern India which went by the name of Ambala Cantonment.  I say this place was popular because many of the Indians from the Northern part of the country, knew Ambala very well. Ambala was located on the National Highway; on the border with the Indian state of Punjab and in proximity to the capital Chandigarh. Due to its geographical location, Ambala  was a prominent place with an Army cantonment.

However, many Indians, residing South of Vindhyas, including me, had never heard of the place.  When I received my posting orders, I looked up the India Map (after locating a political map from my daughter’s text book) to ascertain the exact location and enquired from different people on how to get there by train (Google Maps were still way off).

On my first day, I was welcomed to the branch with some warmth but there was also a small measure of disdain.  Some of the local staff, had a nickname for me, a Madrasi.  Anyone hailing from the Southern part of India was a Madrasi, irrespective of the State they belonged.  Since I was replacing another Madrasi, (a fellow Kannadiga), there was not much expectations from me, as this outgoing person had a very somber reputation.  However, I had made it clear to each and every one of the staff member (whoever bothered to listen) that I was from Bangalore, the capital of Karnataka state and my mother tongue happened to be Kannada; more clearly, I had clarified that I was not a Madrasi.  The staff members nodded knowingly, but never bothered to understand the distinction, or how it affected me.  I always remained a Madrasi to them, with a funny name to boot (Snake King, was what one staff member slyly remarked).

After the first few months of my stay, the staff at the branch started pestering me to host a party of home-prepared Madrasi Idlis and Sambar (I was told that the previous Madrasi incumbent had hosted the staff to delicious Idlis and Sambar on several occasions).  I placed the matter before my wife.  It was agreed that during the branch year end, when only the Managers and Officers staff would be present at the branch, my wife would prepare and serve Idlis with Sambar.

The year-end closing of accounts in a Bank branch, is a grueling period for Officers and Managers staff, as the branch balance sheet has to be drawn as on the last day of the year.  The work would entail hours of preparation and would stretch late into the night and get completed only by the dawn of the subsequent day.  Following which, all the staff involved in the preparation of the balance sheet would be able to reach their homes only on the subsequent day morning for freshening up and reporting for next day's work.

When the day of reckoning arrived, my dutiful wife prepared about 80 Idlis, chutney and a bucketful of steaming Sambar to be served to the branch staff as dinner that evening.   I gallantly took up the task of carrying the bulky steel containers of hot sambar, on my Bajaj scooter at around 8 PM that evening to the branch.  The staff members present on the day were waiting eagerly to partake of the special Madrasi preparation of the soft Idlis and the deliciously aromatic Sambar.  One of my colleagues, took up the unenviable task of serving one and all, with alacrity.  As there were about 20 staff members, I had indicated that each person present could have up to 4 Idlis per plate and a generous serving of chutney and Sambar.

After delivery of the food items, I had got busy with some office work that required concentration; and had totally forgotten about the dinner that evening.  After a lapse of some time, when my hunger pangs started tingling, I checked with the colleague on the status of Idlis and Sambar.  He directed my attention to the steel containers.  I looked into the containers and saw a pile of Idlis still left over.  There was a huge quantity of chutney too, remaining unconsumed.  However, not a single drop of Sambar remained in the steel container.  I casually enquired with my colleague, what had happened with the huge quantity of Sambar.  He guffawed heartily and informed me that all the staff present had eagerly pounced upon the Sambar container and literally dipped their cups and tumblers into the container, merrily drinking away the delicious hot Sambar.  Only a few of them had consumed some Idlis and chutney.  It seemed that there were no takers for Idlis and chutney.  More than 40 Idlis and a huge quantity of chutney had been leftover, which I took back home crestfallen, to my beleaguered wife.  My wife laughingly remarked that she would have prepared and supplied only Sambar, had she known the tastebuds of the staff of my branch; where was the need of taking pains to prepare so many Idlis and chutney, she added.  I do not know to this day, if the famous Madrasi idli/sambar, prepared so painstakingly by my wife to be served to the staff of my branch, was a success or failure!

The Portfolio Conundrum – Honey, it’s all about Money!

It is a bizarre experience to navigate the conundrum named stock market portfolio. Emotions run high and dry, during the ups and downs of the equity markets, especially if you have personally invested in equity and consider yourself a stock market fringe player.   The day the Sensex or the Nifty shoots up, your portfolio valuation shoots up sky high, it would be literally like sailing on cloud nine; no sooner, even before the celebration ends, the portfolio valuation would dip down to an abysmal low; so, would the mood of the player, be.  If one is into the stock market game, honestly, I think the person literally needs to be like the Buddha, to remain unaffected by the stock market volatility.

The stock market experts say, that we should not get rattled by the valuations; the highs and lows are integral to the stock market.  If these were just numbers and figures, I would just be fine; unfortunately, this is all about one’s finances.  Honey, it is all about money.   Stock markets, by its very nature is volatile.  The movement of indices depends on composition of the index and behaviour of the individual shares or stocks of the companies.  Many a time, the stock market indices would have shot up, but my portfolio would have gone down.  Vice versa happening is rare; that’s a mystery to date, which has no logical explanation. All this is perfectly understandable to the analysts or advisors. They have umpteen number of explanations on why the stock value is down or up; or why we should buy or sell a particular stock; or why we should hold or remain invested in the said stock. The advisors would never allow you to exit from the stock market, even though some of the stock valuations are down to a loss of, say 90%, instead they would advise you to substitute the stock with another winner stock from their recommendations’ stable.  They have an explanation for every damn thing happening to the stocks in your portfolio.

All of us have heard of stock market wizards; who have made billions, prime examples being Warren Buffet or our own Rakesh Jhunjhunwala.  My stock market broker/advisor has narrated to me stories of how people who have invested in the equity market and stayed put, have raked in Crores of rupees; rags to riches stories abound in stock market history. With this background, my expectations had been kindled, hoping for a very good return in staying invested long, in the equity market.  I have dreamt of wealth being created through the stock market game.  This, of course, has remained a pipe dream, till today.   But, “never give up, my friend”, says the advisor, (I wouldn’t call him my friend at any rate!) “the cusp of a breakout is very near; Sensex touching 100000 points may not be far off; you will get to be a crorepathi, one day soon”, says the advisor confidently. The fool in me, still believes in the pipe dream; however, I dare not take a peek at my portfolio, which has taken a huge dive in today’s market!

Love of the Mother tongue

What is it about one's mother tongue, it seems to have a larger influence as we get on in years.  When we were in our School years, we were discouraged from speaking the local language.  You see, our School was a sort of Christian run English medium School and this School had strict policy of not allowing the students to speak in local language within the School premises.  Of course, boys being boys, would surreptitiously, speak the local language amongst their close peer group.  If they were caught in the act, the student used to be marched off to the Principal's office.  Some sort of punishment was meted out to the erring student.  Speaking English was considered to be, loosely,  an upper class fashion or more precisely, it was largely the remnant of colonial hangover.  The English speaking class considered themselves to be the ruling class or the English sahib (or Brown Sahib).  Ordinary people aspired to admit their children to English Medium Schools.  Local languages were largely looked down upon, during those confused times soon after Independence.  Times are A-changing now, but still the language prejudice persists in large parts of our country. 

Coming to the point, I have always known my mother tongue to be a strange dialect; a heady mix of Marathi (loosely resembling the regional dialect spoken in large parts of Maharashtra) and other South Indian dialects mostly Tamil, Kannada and to a lesser extent Devanagari. The spoken dialect, accent-wise, almost resembles the local dialect, either Tamil or Kannada, whichever, you would prefer it to be. Any Maharashtrian who would listen to this dialect, would not understand a word of what is spoken. Likewise, if a Tamilian or Kannadiga were to listen to this strange dialect, they would not be able to understand a single word of it. To this day, I don't know what is the dialect called .  We claim it to be the original Marathi.  Not the Maharastrian kind which we believe, has been corrupted and mixed with different languages, especially Hindi.  While, some of my people maintain that it is, indeed, pure Marathi on an overall basis (of the purer kind, if you will!); some would like to call it Desastha Marathi or Kumbakonam Marathi or Thanjavur Marathi. While we were younger, we had a perennial fear that people at large, would confuse our mother tongue with 'Koli Marathi'; also a dialect spoken by a small community of people (tailors mostly) who are basically non-vegetarian in their dietary habits. Hence, we were refrained from speaking our mother tongue, when moving amongst the general public (for example, while walking through the Markets, or while travelling in public transport like trains, Buses, etc.). Though, honestly, I have to admit that both the dialects sounded almost similar in most parts! I still don't know, what is the harm if people confuse one dialect for another. How does it matter to stray listeners whether you are a vegetarian (speaking Desastha Marathi) or a non-vegetarian (speaking Koli Marathi)?

I have to admit, I have largely forgotten speaking Desastha Marathi myself, these days; I refer to myself as a Kannadiga to anyone who wants to know my mother tongue. However, whenever I happen to speak to a certain relative, who has historically spoken to me only in Desastha Marathi, I instinctively start speaking the dialect fluently; almost like a fish taking to water. That is the beauty of it, we never forget our mother tongue, though we hardly speak the dialect on a regular basis.

When in School, I remember some of my school mates needling and bullying me with expressions, such as, "Kaai katlas re" or "Kaai kasala, benne masala". It sounds amusing to recollect those expressions, now; but, as a young boy, I used to be horrified when such expressions were casually directed at me and my mother tongue was made fun of. When I discussed such matters with family elders, we were advised not to speak our mother tongue outside of our homes; it was generally understood, that such fun-expressions on different dialects were par for the course. The times were such.

All of this is nice, in good humour. However, there appears to be a more serious issue at hand. It now appears to me that the strange dialect which I call for brevity's sake,  Desastha Marathi, that is my mother tongue, is simply vanishing from the scene. The dialect which was spoken in my family for generations (I can count, at least, five generations straightaway), has almost vanished, largely no thanks to me; I have to take some of the blame; for I have not taken any steps in the direction of speaking the dialect and passing on the language to my next generation of descendants. My daughter laughs at me when I speak the language.  Sad, but true. I have to own up to my responsibility, though I would like to partially pass on the blame to larger issues such as, national integration and / or globalization; which has accounted for many of the local dialects and or/languages disappearing from the scene. Take Kannada for instance, many of its adherents are of the opinion that the language would soon disappear if no steps are taken now for its propagation and continuous use in the city/state that we live in. English has become the common link language; what with people inter-marrying, cutting across castes and religious lines. In a way, all of this is good for the society, but then, there is also a negative side; that has an effect on the languages/dialects that gets marginalized in the process. I am going off the tangent, as usual. Pardon me. Coming back to the issue of my mother tongue, there is a real crisis on hands now. My mother tongue has been marginalized, largely due to its non-usage; not developing any pride in speaking the dialect and not passing on the language intact to our next generation.

However, I still have high hopes that, someone (brave and wonderful), somewhere would have taken steps to speak and promote the beautiful Desastha Marathi dialect (my mother tongue, which is lavishing in the ICU now) for the sake of posterity. I would be hugely indebted and grateful to such wonderful people out there!

Stray thoughts on ‘what constitutes Happiness’

In a recent article, what I read about ‘Happiness’, made me thoughtful and my brain cells were activated (normally, they are dormantJ).  The article went on, “Happiness is the ultimate purpose of our existence, whether as a conscious or unconscious decision. It is every human being's inalienable right. Yet, how do we measure happiness? It comes in so many different forms and for such diverse reasons that there can never be a consensus of what constitutes happiness.” The words rang true.   The author had so eloquently expressed it.  When I looked up on the Wikipedia and many other resources (Thank God for Google!) there were numerous and confusing definitions of what constituted happiness and I felt that the subject was too complex for a confused layman, like me, to handle; in effect, there was no consensus on the definition of happiness as concluded by the above said author.

Man, has lived and survived in this World for thousands of years, yet, if happiness is the ultimate purpose of all our existence, is there no simple answer to this perennial question of how to be happy?

I held this thought.  A beautiful quote had stuck with me, in my sub-conscious mind for a long time. 

“It is so simple to be happy….. yet it is so difficult to be simple”.  This was a quote from a Hindi movie of yesteryear “Bawarchi”, a cult classic from the inimitable Hrishikesh Mukherjee.  Although, this truism had a deep sense of meaning and suggested an elaborate word play, in effect, this implied to me, that simplicity, could be the answer to happiness.  If one leads a simple life with no material wants or desires; following asceticism, good virtues and moral character, life would be much simpler and thereby hangs a tale; Man, can be happy, if he chooses to remain simple.

It is not in my character to give up on the material wants and desires; I do not wish to lead an ascetic’s life, though I believe I have strong moral character and have some fine virtues.  Excuse me, it is not that I crave to own a palatial bungalow in Sadashivanagar or own a high-end Merc or BMW or Audi or even travel around the world, first class.  There is no end to what a person can crave for and the World can offer.  I, on other hand, would love to enjoy the material and mundane pleasures, life has to offer, within the limited resources, I have. I am digressing.

The more I thought about it, the more I felt that, happiness, is after all, one’s state of mind.  When we are at peace with our inner self and surrounded by Nature’s wonders, perhaps, a wave of ‘well-being’ emotions would sweep over us (could I say this is happiness, or may be, one would call it euphoria?); On the other extreme, just as an illustration, when we are walking on the street, in a heavy traffic zone filled with smoke emanating from vehicles; and we see dirt and squalor strewn all around, an opposite kind of wave, perhaps, nausea, would sweep over us, making us feel unpleasant; could this constitute unhappiness during that moment?  Is this too simplistic an explanation, for what happiness or unhappiness could mean to ordinary humans?

Have we all not heard the famous quote, that ‘darkness’ is the absence of light?  Similarly, in my mind, the absence of inner strife (our devilish thoughts and conflicting emotions) and/or the absence of problems/issues we face in our daily life, constitutes happiness. Apart from this, I really do not understand, what one would call happiness.  May be, an ascetic who is in deep penance in the Himalayan jungles would understand the term happiness in a better perspective.  I, for one, cannot. In that sense, in my present state, I am profoundly happy, thank you!